“We all die alone, and we die without our possessions, including our sneaker collection,” the New York-based artist Tom Sachs said last week. It was, perhaps, an oddly nihilistic note to strike in an interview pegged to the release of his latest collaboration with Nike, but Sachs is seemingly never not his critical self, even when discussing such things, peppering in his thoughts on consumerism’s effects on the soul and references to the early-20th-century capitalist critic Thorstein Veblen along the way.

Nonetheless! Tom Sachs has a new shoe. As its name signals, the Mars Yard 2.0 is an upgrade to his first team-up with Nike. Released in 2012, when such art world-fashion mash-ups weren’t as common as they are these days, the original Mars Yard took cues from Sachs’s signature space-travel-themed work, borrowing fabrics from NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory. The shoes proved popular with both the streetwear and art crowds, selling out quickly and earning a coveted status on the secondary market. But Sachs, whose studio assistants actually wore the shoes at work, found that while their components may have tested to be stronger than steel and fire-resistant, they broke down after typical wear-and-tear in the outside world.

“We’ve used this as an opportunity to address some of the things that didn’t go as planned,” Sachs told Vanity Fair in a phone interview. “The thing I’m most excited about is how this project is a true embrace of failure.”

Sachs views such shortcomings as a vital part of his work, prodding him to keep going, work harder, and get better. “A metaphor I like to use in art is that if you just do what you’re good at, you’re a prostitute,” he said. “In other words, ‘Hey, Tom, that painting is really great, can you make another just like it for me?’ If I say yes, I’m doing it to fulfill the needs of the client, the John. I’m a hooker.”

Sachs said he doesn’t like to do many collaborations, allowing that he is “too selfish” when it comes to his work, which may explain the intensity of effort he put into the sneakers. Sachs said he appreciates Nike’s evolving approach to its labor practices and noted its willingness to change as a point of respect for one of the world’s largest apparel companies.

“It took five years of conversations between me and [Nike C.E.O.] Mark Parker to come to terms [with] what the collaboration would be,” he said, while hinting at even more projects in the future. “It took literally five years to come to the simple formula that the project must be equal parts Nike and Sachs and it must be something that neither could do without the other.”

For the Mars Yard 2.0, he isn’t only upgrading the sneaker, he’s also adapting how consumers get it. In lieu of the traditional “drop,” wherein streetwear companies expect customers to wait hours in line, which Sachs has a particular disdain for, Sachs has created an immersive experience that includes an obstacle course and short film. Customers can sign up to participate in Sachs’s Space Camp at Governors Island, where they’ll go through fitness guru Pat Manocchia’s five essential exercises (the deadlift, lunge, push-up, chin-up, and ab wheel) like Sachs does with his team at his studio three times a week at 8:30 A.M. Each exercise correlates to a certain studio skill, Sachs explained, be it wall drawing, bead making, or screw sorting.

The 40-minute film, The Hero’s Journey, takes one of his interns and puts her, as Sachs said, “into an extraordinary world, forced to confront her demons, who must fail over and over again until she succeeds and achieves a state of mastery and ultimately becomes the teacher for the next generation.” (A pretty high bar to set for an intern!)

Even those looking to go the online route will need to pass muster. Customers who can’t make it to one of the Space Camps in New York or London, can take “five tests of digital dexterity” online in order to purchase the shoes. Our discussion of the e-comm model brought Sachs to his mixed feelings on the subject of the Internet. While it is “really great for shopping and pornography,” Sachs ultimately finds it difficult to make art on a computer.

“I think the power of the Internet is a beautiful thing because it helps people to create dissent and express it in a peaceful, non-destructive, creative way where they can be very critical of the culture that we have,” he said, wondering how it might have changed the trajectory of violent groups like The Angry Brigade or people like the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. (“I think if he was active today, he would probably be really successful on the Internet and wouldn’t have to resort to violence.”)

“And this is a quintessentially American philosophy, and that's that we have the right to our ideas and they’re protected better in the United States than anywhere else in the world,” Sachs said. “It’s an incredibly free place even though it seems insane right now with this terrible leadership that we have going on. But it still remains a place where people can push the limits of ideas, and that’s an important thing that we have to protect.”

But in short: “It’s just another way of sharing and another way to help people access the ideas of this project if they can’t be here.” And for those who can’t make their way there, don’t worry. In another five years we all might find the prospect of actually shipping off to space in a pair of Mars Yard 3.0s downright appealing.

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